The evaluation of an information literacy training course at University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

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The evaluation of an information literacy
training course at University of Dar es Salaam,
Tanzania

• By
• Wema, E Hepworth, M

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Presentation headings

• Purpose of research
• Research methods used
• Course structure
• Findings
• Reflections on teaching methods used
• Conclusion

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Problems of ongoing IL courses at UDSM

• Lack of training programme for entire community
• Impact of the course not felt by students
• Lack of motivation by students and the faculty
• Failure to meet University curriculum needs
• Courses not integrated into the University
  curriculum

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Purpose of research

• To develop a training course that inculcated
  information literacy
• The course was to be implemented by staff in the
  library
• The course was developed through the integration
  of knowledge from information behaviour research
  and educational theory with current Information
  and Library Science perspectives of information
  literacy.

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Research Methods

• Action research
• Literature review
• Interviews with the faculty librarians
• Diagnostic tests
• Quizzes
• Reflective exercises
• Presentations group work
• Group reflections

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Course structure

• It was run for seven days from 8am to 5pm, from
  3rd -15th July, 2005
• Group of students involved were Masters of
  education at the Faculty of education, UDSM
• Students defined the term information literacy
  in their own terms
• Diagnostic pre-test

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Course structure (cont.)

• Define a problem or research topic
• Locate and access information
• Synthesize evaluate information
• Communicate and use information

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Findings quizzes

• Assisted to demonstrate students understanding
  of various aspects covered in the programme
• E.g. defining a problem and focus
• defining a topic or research problem requires a
  deeper understanding of a topic and the knowledge
  of subject domain
• Providing focus on a topic assist in determining
  the depth of information needed to answer a
  question at hand
• Determining information needs may help to know
  which type of information is needed

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Findings quizzes

• Quizzes indicated students reflections on what
  one would ask him/herself before developing a
  search strategy
• What is the topic about
• which broader and or related subject area
  surrounds it
• what has already been discussed about this
  topic
• What do I know about this topic and what I do
  not know
• Where and how to find background information
  about the topic
• How do I plan to search for information
• Which sources exist that provide answers to
  topical questions addressed
• Will the answers obtained be relevant to my
  topic
• To what extent will the information obtained
  solve information problems related to my topic

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Findings quizzes

• Quizzes also revealed areas where students did
  less well e.g. when describing the Internet
  search engine Google
• some records in Google contain similar
  information to the online catalogue record
  (author, title, place and year of publication)
• This indicated that the student didnt fully
  appreciate the highly structured nature of the
  catalogue record.

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Findings reflective exercises

• Helped to indicate students thoughts on a range
  of activities carried out throughout the course.
• Assisted to indicate different skills that
  students acquired from the course
• Assisted to indicate how they applied the skills
  during the course
• Helped to identify possible problems and
  solutions in order to develop a deeper
  understanding of the IL process

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Findings reflective exercises

• I was able to redefine focus of my topic on
  educational management by identifying topic
  variables
• I used phrase searching to locate information
  about girls attitude and performance in maths
  in Yahoo directory
• I was able to capture and synthesize information
  from books, theses and reports on quality
  education
• I was able to know that plagiarism could be
  practised in many forms
• Despite all that was covered, I failed to know
  how to effectively make use of various techniques
  of information searching

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Findings reflective exercises

• Skills for future use
• By knowing how information is generated, one can
  plan how to acquire it this means that even
  after finishing my studies I can apply the same
  principles by knowing where to go for
  information.
• Overall course expectations
• I expected to learn how to search for
  information relevant to my research. I think this
  objective was met.

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Findings reflective exercises

• Provided critical comments which assisted to
  improve similar future programmes
• Students should do IL courses after attending
  basic IT courses.
• In order for students to acquire the required
  skills, more exercises and hands on activities
  should be provided.
• Skills such as IR and bibliographic citations
  should be broader and must have follow up
  courses.
• The course should be conducted right before
  students finish year 1.

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Findings Presentations

• Assisted students engagement in the learning
  process by presenting what they learned
• In our group, we are going to evaluate the
  currently proposed curriculum for diploma
  education
• Helped to demonstrate students ability to carry
  out various activities, e.g. to identify possible
  sources to find background information about
  their problems
• Relevant sources to familiarise ourselves on
  girls attitudes towards mathematics include
  local Internet portal such as Haki-Elimu
  (http//www.hakielimu.org/), Tanzania Online
  (http//www.tzonline.org) etc

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Findings Presentations

• Helped to capture students reflections on their
  prior knowledge and what they gained from the
  course
• We have acquired more knowledge on curriculum
  evaluation than what we knew before
• The knowledge about girls attitudes towards
  mathematics and the impact of the attitudes to
  performance worldwide was not new to us but we
  acquired new knowledge on how these attitudes
  affect girls performance in secondary schools in
  Tanzania

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Findings Presentations

• Served to indicate areas where students found
  problems, e.g. in information searching
• We tried to search for school leadership, school
  management and roles of academic heads by using
  both, simple and advanced search in the OPAC but
  got nothing. We went to a librarian for help he
  told us that the database does not have documents
  under such subject area
• When we used Yahoo to search for educational
  performance AND management issues we got
  irrelevant results, we thought that the two
  aspects were too general because when we refined
  them, we got relevant results
• Encouraged peer to peer shared learning

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Reflections on teaching methods Quizzes

• ve observation quizzes enabled students to
  relate theory to practice in the real world
• The question on various examples of plagiarism
  addressed techniques that are really practical in
  the academic environment where students copy and
  paste information from the Internet and use it as
  theirs
• -ve observation quizzes allowed for guesswork
• Sometimes I selected possible answers for
  multiple-choice questions without thinking why I
  did so

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Reflections on reflective exercises

• ve observation reflective exercises made
  students aware of relevant skills related to
  information literacy
• Reflective questions that needed us to recall on
  new skills taught and what we acquired, created
  an awareness of various important skills in
  information seeking process
• -ve observation learning reflective skills was
  not straight forward
• Reflective thinking skills were meant to make us
  aware of what we have acquired. But it took time
  for some of us to recognise what new skills we
  have gained after each session

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Reflections on group presentations

• ve observations presentations helped students
  engage in information seeking activities
• Group presentations forced everybody in my group
  to work hard to avoid defeat by other groups
• -ve observations possession of appropriate
  presentations skills was the key to better
  performance in group work
• Due to lack of prior presentation skills, some
  of us did not do it well

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Conclusion

• Quizzes, reflective exercises, group work and
  presentations facilitated communication,
  reflection, feedback and learning
• These methods, combined with problem-based
  learning, assisted to keep students engaged and
  on track throughout the course
• They served as tools evaluate the course

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Conclusion

• Main challenge how to implement such an approach
  to the entire student population
• Possible solutions (?)
• Incorporating IL into the curriculum
• VLEs
• Familiarise lecturers with IL
• Peer to peer training